♠ Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Introducing the RhymesWithJoker Fora!
(from the introductory post:)
These fora are presented as a service of (and extension of) RhymesWithJoker.com, a blog about poker and my progress in the game.
I don't actually expect these fora, this one particularly, to be very high-traffic: The "Comments" field to my posts represents a good way to make your thoughts about my play or my posts known.
But what if you have your own comments to make, or questions to ask? Or, since Haloscan deletes comments after about three months, what if you have something to say that you wish to be of a more permanent nature? This forum is the place to do it.
I've added several other fora, one for each of the people I mention occasionally in my blog. I expect "The Mind of Dave" to get hooked onto Cactus Dave's LiveJournal, but I have no idea what will occur at "The Brain of Gil" or "The Anguished Scream of Dylan." The Nomic fora are related to a game which as I write this is still in the future, but hopefully soon is an ongoing thing.
I'm really looking forward to extending this corner of the poker-blogger community, and look forward to seeing what becomes of these fora.
No Limit: LIVE!
Monday, July 26 was the first time the Little River Casino in Manistee, Michigan was permitted to deal big-bet games. Since their Monday and Tuesday tournaments already attract a lot of non-regular players, I expected the game on Monday afternoon and evening to be a good game.
The room's manager wants to deal both a $1/$2 $100-max game, and a $3/$6 true no-limit game. Monday, the only game was the $1/$2 game, and this will probably be the case for some time, until word spreads about the new games.
Truly, this should have been a great game. Most of the players were non-regulars, had just come off the tournament, and had never played a no-limit ring game. Not counting myself, there were two players who were pretty good, and one who was only fair but was very lucky. Most of the rest of the table was pretty weak. So you'd think I would do really well, but it didn't happen.
Early on, the game was fairly normal for a PartyPoker $25NL table. All-in's were common. I lost one when I was sucked out on, and won one when I sucked out. Both of these were to the same guy, although my suckout also got me another player's chips.
Actually, the second one of these was a collection of mistakes by me that the cards saved me from. I had AKo, and after a limper or two raised to $20. Unfortunately, I got two callers, and then the flop missed me entirely. I should have raised enough, it seems, to reduce the number of callers, so that I could play headsup. But 10× the big blind should have done that. In fact, it was too big a raise, and maybe that was the problem. Anyway, after the flop came Queen-high, the action checked to me. I had actually planned to give up on the hand, but I hoped to take it right here with a decent bet, so I stacked $40 out there. Probably it was obvious I changed my mind before I put that in, because the first limper (or maybe he was a blind) went over-the-top all-in, and since I only had another $40 or so and the pot was huge, I called, as did the second limper. Both of these were huge mistakes by me; the $40 was too small a bet originally, and in a cash game the concept of "pot-committed" is foolish. I had an argument about pot odds, maybe, depending on what I thought the other players had, but even that was weak. As it happened, the raiser flipped a Queen with a weak kicker, and the caller wasn't even set that well. But an Ace came on the turn, and it held up, and I dragged a $300 pot. Goodie for me.
The second mistake had the right outcome; I lost to a nut hand that failed to pan out. The player I termed weak but lucky kept betting into my top pair/top kicker, and I couldn't seriously put her on the QT she'd have had to have had for the nuts. Two pair, maybe, but not a straight. That hand cost me about $75.
The third mistake cost me over $100, and that was to a player that I strongly suspect is a pro, despite being only about 25 (and he looks younger). With K9 in the cutoff, I open-raised to $10, and was called by him from one of the blinds. The flop missed me, but he checked, so I bet $20, and was called. The turn hit my King, and I bet $40, and he called. The river was an Ace, putting the third club out, and he bet $80 into me. I said "shit" about sixteen times and folded, whereupon he flipped his 24♦ for a big fat nothing. I was bluffed off of the winning hand, and that was probably a move he uses a lot. Dammit.
When the no-limit game lost its last weak player (who seemed like a decent limit player but his tells were so blatant that even I could read them, and he let me buy a pot from him), the game was four-handed, and I stood up and got onto the list for the limit game. Then a couple of the $4/$8 players asked about switching the NL game to $6/$12 limit, and asked me to rejoin them, which I did. The $4/$8 game looked like a better game, though, so I left after a single orbit. I made some money, but when that game went short-handed too, we combined down to a single table at $6/$12. I won one hand by making a flush, and my horrible day ended up down $23 in all. For a learning experience, not too bad, maybe.
I had originally intended to play again with Tuesday's post-tournament crowd, but someone I met at the casino Sunday let me know about a $1/$2 pot-limit game he holds irregularly, and he expected Tuesday to be the next game. Too bad I couldn't check my Email from the casino, because my Email box didn't have anything from him, and so I should have stayed at the casino. I earned a hell of a lot of comp points for that, over the weekend.
Instead, I expect to go back Friday night, when the game will hopefully be pulling people from the casino outside on a fairly regular basis. I could use their $100's.
